


Kleider Machen Leute

by Cylin



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Compassionate!Charles (at least he's trying...), Dubious Consent, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, Feminization, Forced Feminization, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Rough Sex, There is dub-con/non-con all through the fic but no rape, Virgin!Erik, cross-dressing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:33:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cylin/pseuds/Cylin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Charles has *definite* ideas about what is homosexual what is not. After all, he does enjoy women. Then comes Erik, who's known nothing but pain and revenge for most of his life. He knows he's powerful and his fantasies have always been of violence. He's a virgin with severe intimacy issues. He's in love with Charles. He would do anything. And Charles- Well, Erik is nothing like he expected.<br/>But what Charles wants, he gets. Still, it is so much easier to convince himself if Erik could dress up as a woman...wear a dress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [furius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/gifts).



> **Heed the warnings in the additional tags, people!**
> 
>  
> 
> Betaed by the wonderful Shiromori.  
> I'm amazed how he managed to wade through all the spelling and especially punctiation mistakes, took time to comment _and_ cheer me on. You are wonderful!  
>  (All remaining mistakes are mine, of course)
> 
>  _Kleider machen Leute_ is a German proverb translating to something like 'Clothes make the man', 'Fine feathers make fine birds', 'The dress proclaims the man'

They had just finished their “tour” as Raven referred to it, and they all had been allocated rooms. Erik stood in his. His modest case was still sitting unopened next to the bed. He stood at the foot of the bed, eyes constantly shifting around the room. He was getting a feel for his new surroundings.

The paint job on the inside of the window frame was surprisingly sloppy for such a grand house. The window had been partially painted shut and he needed to prise it free tonight, to make sure it would open easily. Also, he needed to move the heavy oak desk a little to the right so he could – if need be – have easy access to the window.

The room had three doors: one for a walk-in closet, the other to an en suite bathroom, but it had only one entrance door. He needed to secure a second escape route – hence the desk and the window. The house was beautiful, but old and therefore inconvenient for easy access and escape. The frames of the doors were massive wood – oak most probably – and therefore heavy.

He felt a little trapped.

He’d always liked the thin, light construction of modern American housing. It was easy to kick in the doors from their spindly frames if he was trapped, but not in this house. Not with these doors in these frames. He definitely needed to scrape the paint off the window, just to make sure.

His eyes shifted to one of the other doors. Behind it was a walk-in closet full of women’s clothes, he knew. It was the first thing he’d checked, opening every door, every cupboard, every drawer, looking inside, getting familiar with the layout of the room. But this house was old, Erik thought, maybe there was a maid’s entrance hidden somewhere, a second entrance and exit to this room. He walked over to the double doors of the walk-in closet and opened them wide.

Loads and loads of elegant fifties-style women’s clothing hung neatly on hangers. And why Charles had given him this particular room, he really didn’t know. He looked at all this casually displayed wealth and wrinkled his nose. So much decadence in this place.

For a walk-in closet it was probably rather small, judging from the spacious layout of the whole mansion, Erik thought. Maybe three meters squared. He stepped fully inside and looked up at the high ceiling. Twelve to fifteen people could fit into three square meters if they were thin enough, if you stacked them right. Schmidt had taught him this: methodical thinking and usage of space.

At the soft knock on the door, Erik turned around, pulled from his thoughts to see Charles stick his head around the door.

“Erik?” he asked, looking around the room. When Charles saw him, his face lit up into a warm smile. “I just wanted to make sure you’re settling in alright?”

Erik nodded, still standing in the middle of the closet, the dresses on their hangers hanging around him like empty shells of people, discarded skins in this massive space of three by three meters. He swallowed once. “Was this your mother’s room?” Erik asked.

Charles frowned in confusion and Erik indicated the dresses around him. Charles’s eyes brightened in understanding. “Oh, no.” Charles shook his head, his tone suggesting what an unthinkable affront that would have been to her. He walked over to Erik, letting one hand trail over the sleeves and skirts made from fine, expensive fabrics. “She just had a habit of taking up every closet and wardrobe with her clothes in every room she at least remotely frequented.” Charles took a hanger randomly from the wooden rail and held it a little away, examining it. It was an elegant Chanel two-piece in gently blush pink. Charles frowned. “I didn’t even know all this was still here. We should take these out so you have some space to put your clothes.”

Erik could never hope to fill this big closet with his clothes. Not even all his possessions would fill it. He didn’t need it either, but Charles was willing to make him feel comfortable and welcome here, and Erik appreciated the gesture. Also, he liked having Charles around. For himself. That was why he had enjoyed their road trip so much.

He’d had strange dreams then – dreams the likes of which he hadn’t had ever since he’d hit puberty. But these had been slightly different. Instead of sating a need and leaving him sweaty but relieved, these had left him aching and hollow, longing to feel real, warm, living skin against his own.

Charles’s skin.

Erik’s heart jumped and he didn’t know what to do with these thoughts. He felt a little helpless. He hated helplessness, but he longed for this particular brand of helplessness, too, in a strange, inexplicable way he could not fathom. Charles’s cologne, mixed with the smell of wool and tweed, wafted as a gentle scent around them, slowly filling the space. Erik swallowed and took a step back, rustling the hangers behind him. Charles looked from the Chanel piece to him and smiled, hanging it back in its proper place.

“Come, my friend, dinner’s probably ready.” He laid a hand on Erik’s shoulder and steered him out of the closet. “We can take them out afterwards, if you like.”

Erik nodded mutely, sucking in air through his nose that still carried faint traces of the mixed scent that Erik had come to associate purely with Charles.

xXx

“Do you really want to throw them out? They are your mother’s.” Erik said the last part quietly. If he had anything of his mother’s he would protect it with his life and keep it safe, but he didn’t even have memories that weren’t tainted with the sound of a lifeless body hitting the floor in an office in Auschwitz-Birkenau. He wondered how Charles could be so callous. How different they were, he and Erik.

“Well, what else am I going to do with them? I’m hardly going to wear them.” Charles raised an eyebrow.

Erik snorted, Charles’s mirthful expression warming him. “I don’t know, Charles, maybe you could set a trend?” Erik muttered mock-sly, holding up a long, flowing black dress, shimmering with shiny black sequins, against Charles’s neck. He raised an eyebrow in a faux semblance of assessing the fashionable potential of this combination.

Charles’s hand snapped up to his, his fingers clamping round Erik’s wrist hard, pulling it away from his body sharply.

They stared at each other for a moment, Erik in slight shock, Charles scrutinising him closely.

Erik tried not to swallow and give away how nervous he felt all of a sudden. There was something in Charles’s eyes. Something he didn’t know how to interpret or how to react to. It was a dilated vertigo-pull of a gaze, a glimmer so dark and beckoning it made the little hairs stand up all over Erik’s body, and something tightened in his stomach. And lower, too.

Erik tried a reassured, cheeky smile from the repertoire of expressions he now had no idea how to use, nor if they were even appropriate.

Charles’s face abruptly broke out into one of his warm smiles and he slowly let go of Erik’s wrist. His eyes still shone in that particular way, but he now looked as pleased with himself as he always did – the normal, cocky, self-assured Charles.

Erik felt real emotion slowly seep back into his smiling expression, until the smile was actually genuine.

“Maybe _you_ should,” Charles muttered amusedly, grabbing a violently magenta feather boa from behind him and slinging it casually around Erik’s neck. Erik had a split second in which he thought that he liked the colour, but that it also reminded him a little too much of a triangle of a colour he _didn’t_ want to think about. Then Charles stepped closer until he was close enough that he had to tilt his head slightly back to look up at Erik.

Erik stood there, not moving, all the banter of before forgotten, erased from existence. His blood thundered in his ears and his whole body felt like it was on fire, while feeling curiously cold as well. He breathed carefully through his nose.

Charles crossed the ends of the boa in front of Erik’s throat, the soft downy marabou feathers caressing the back of his neck, and slung one end flamboyantly over Erik’s shoulder. Charles grinned up at him playfully, rubbing the looped band of feathers into Erik’s neck for a moment.

Erik just breathed through his nose, the scent of Charles now mixing with the slightly dusty smell of feathers so close to him. He tried smiling amusedly back at Charles, but feared it came across as confused as he felt.

“Fine feathers make a fine bird,” Charles murmured lowly under his breath, and Erik caught a curious emphasis on the word ‘bird’. Then Charles leaned slowly forward, into Erik. He moved so slowly, in fact, that Erik could easily have stepped back and out of that damn closet, but he didn’t. He just stood there, waiting frozen in place for what Charles would do next.

He felt that tingle and tightening again, felt himself getting aroused and didn’t really know why, or what he should do about it.

Erik had never had an interest in such a mundane thing as sex. Oh, he had tried, because it was considered normal human nature, but after a few tries – with women first, because it was expected, and with men afterwards, because maybe he was just that queer – he had given up. It had never gone any further than quick gropes or a sloppy kiss, because he quickly lost interest in his partners and was always pushed further along by his need to find and kill Schmidt. In the end, he had resigned himself to the knowledge that he was neither normal nor human.

But now he stood here, in this huge closet with another man, the empty shells, discarded, finely tailored carapaces of women’s clothes all around them, and Charles so close that Erik could now taste his aftershave as a sharp prickle on the back of his tongue. Erik’s mouth watered involuntarily and he nervously licked his lips. The gesture made Charles smile wickedly and lean in all the way, now holding Erik’s face captive between both hands, magenta feathers trapped between his fingers and Erik’s skin.

When their lips brushed, Erik made a small sound. It was nothing more than a quivering huff of expelled breath, but it sounded loud and damning to his ears. But Charles just smiled against his lips, caressing Erik’s gently with his own.

Erik felt weak in the knees. A prickle started at the back of his neck, where Charles’s fingers brushed the feathers against his skin, and spread in sizzling meanderings across his body only to numb his knees into buckling under him. In all his trials with other people, Erik had never felt that before.

He knew the feeling of dread and fear and anticipation of the pain to come, when people in starched white scrubs approached him, and this was not unlike that, but it felt different all the same. It was different because he felt he _wanted_ this. He had no idea what to do with that. It wasn’t unpleasant, but then he felt so trapped in his own body all of a sudden that it wasn’t pleasant, either. In the end, he opted not to move at all. There wasn’t much beyond that that he could do, anyway.

And he trusted Charles. Charles had warm hands, but that wasn’t it, really. All the scientists had had warm hands and reassuring smiles, and sometimes compassion, too, just like Charles. He was a scientist, yes – an educated, curious man – but he didn’t smell of disinfectant and the metallic tang of blood, and he wasn’t wearing a white coat, so Erik trusted him. He felt childish and stupid for making his decision rest upon such a trifling fact, but somehow it seemed important. Charles wore warm tweed and wool and cotton and he never looked like he was discarding a skin when he took his clothing off – not like these shells proclaiming wealth and status hanging neatly on hangers around them.

Erik made another snuffling, involuntary sound and Charles leaned back slowly. He smiled up at Erik, his cheeks flushed, his lips red and his blue eyes shining. Erik felt himself follow Charles’s backwards movement with his head tilted forward, his lips following Charles’s, but Charles just stroked Erik’s cheek with the back of his hand in an entirely too gentle gesture and Erik stopped.

“You don’t have much experience with this, do you, my friend?” Charles asked gently. There was only friendly curiosity in his voice, no malice or mockery. Erik thought about how his knees still felt too weak and how the blood was thundering in his ears so loudly that he had expected not to hear Charles speak at all - and of course the pressure in his groin. That felt most persistent of all.

He shook his head. “No,” he croaked. “Not like this.”

Charles’s smile widened and he looked pleased again. Erik couldn’t decide if he was perhaps pleased with himself or with Erik.

“Chess?” Charles asked and stepped further away from Erik, giving him space. He let go of the feather boa, but left it around Erik’s neck.

Erik nodded mutely, feeling shaken and weak. He didn’t like it. He suddenly felt an angry surge for which he had no target to direct. _This stupid boa!_ he thought, _decadent and useless and itchy and all too frivolous._

He quickly pulled it from his neck, but stopped at just throwing it on the floor. It was not his. It belonged to Charles’s mother. He felt lost for a moment, holding the long strip of feathers insecurely in his hands, staring at it.

“Oh, just leave it anywhere,” Charles commented casually, noticing how Erik looked around for a place to put it. _How casual and thoughtless this man can be_ , Erik thought.

He carefully hung the boa around the hanger which held the black sequined dress. The colours worked well together, he thought, the turmoil in him calming a little at the innocent observation.

He closed the double doors of the closet, as he stepped out, his gaze still on the boa.

They hadn’t removed a single item of clothing.

xXx


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, translation to the German phrases can be seen when hovering your cursor over them.

Erik was tired. So much had happened in the space of a day, and he and Charles had played chess for hours until the early morning – mainly because Erik couldn’t say no, despite his tiredness. But now he was standing in his room again. It was weird thinking about this space as specifically his, but everybody else seemed to think so, so why shouldn’t he? It seemed more normal now, and saying ‘the room Charles lent me to stay in’ was quite a mouthful.

To make it fully his, though, he still needed to adjust something. There was something still driving him, making him feel uncomfortable and trapped.

He stepped up to the window and looked out at the dark grounds before him. So much space here. So much space in this place. So much space in this land – “the land of the free” – yet, he felt more trapped than ever before. He wondered if Charles was the reason for that. However, it was a different kind of entrapment. It felt… warmer somehow. Still uncomfortable, this warmth, sticky and cloying, but strangely lulling and thick, like the _Karamel von Tante Myriam_. He hadn’t thought about her for years. Her and the fine lacy basque and beautiful garters she had always worn that all his boyhood friends had talked about in secret. She had been a beautiful woman. Erik thought of Charles, about what he had said almost absentmindedly. A fine bird with fine feathers. A beautiful woman. For a moment, he felt like wrapping his arms around himself, feeling the broad shoulders and sinewy muscles. He dismissed it as childish and weak.

He flipped open his Swiss penknife without ever taking his eyes off the lawns outside. Space as far as the eye could see, and he was standing behind a closed window, separate. He let his eyes drift away from the night scenery to the thin, gleaming blade of the knife. No one made penknives quite like the Swiss.

He could suddenly feel the presence of the closet behind him, like the physical presence of a sleeping, cold-hearted beast, waiting to ensnare him further. He jammed the knife under the windowsill in answer. Chips of wood and paint flew away, landing on the carpet below the sill. Erik stopped, taking a deep breath, calming himself. He wanted to prise the window open, not damage the whole frame. This old house didn’t deserve that.

With infinite care he moved the knife along the seam, hearing the paint crackle and split. Once he was done, he slid the window open from the bottom up. American windows were weird like that. They always reminded him of guillotines, and he was always unreasonably afraid of his fingers getting pinched should a window fall suddenly shut.

Cool night air drifted into the room, filling his nose and lungs with the damp smells of earth and grass from the outside. He took a deep breath and felt better.

Erik wanted to keep the window slightly open, just for the sake of his mind’s comfort. He took a letter opener from the desk he had moved slightly away this afternoon and wedged it under the frame. Just the tiniest sliver of space separated window from frame now – not even enough to let in much air from the outside or let heat dissipate from the inside. It was enough for him, though.

He turned around, his gaze falling on the closet door. It felt less like a presence now and more like any other space.

Satisfied and finally settled, Erik went to bed.

xXx

“Have you ever heard of ‘paiderasteia’, Erik?”

Erik looked up from the chess board he had been leaning over for the past ten minutes, carefully planning his next three moves, and trying to anticipate Charles’s reactions to them. He felt slightly disoriented by the question for a moment. The term seemed somehow familiar, but he could not recall its meaning exactly. He raised an eyebrow at Charles.

“Erastēs and Eromenos?” Charles prodded gently.

“Ah,” Erik answered in acknowledgement, remembering, “ _Griechische Liebe_ , the love between a man and his teenaged protégé?”

Charles nodded, his eyes strangely sharp and observant. Erik felt slightly uncomfortable to be the focus of such intense attention. They looked at each other and Erik got the undefined feeling that he was supposed to say something, to continue this conversation, but he had no idea where Charles wanted to go with it. Neither one of them was a boy anymore. They were both men. Grown, adult men. Equals.

“Do you – ” Erik swallowed, feeling suddenly irrationally angry, suppressing it expertly as soon as the feeling rose. “…do you want that?”

“Do _you_?” Charles countered, smiling warmly. Indulgently. It sent a chill down Erik’s spine, an uncomfortable one, but at the same time, he felt that weird spike of waxing arousal again. He had no concept of how to react to this. This helplessness made him even angrier, and that could be dangerous. Anger made him violent, and in a way, he craved that. It was familiar and he wanted to feel it. Not these new things Charles evoked so easily and without a thought about how confusing and strange they were for Erik.

“We are neither Greek, nor is one of us a boy, Charles,” Erik said, lazily grabbing his rook and placing it down on the board with more force than was probably necessary. Charles’s eyes snapped to the beautifully carved piece, lingering there. Erik thought he could see Charles swallow uncomfortably, but he couldn’t be sure.

Charles made his next move. He must have been very distracted, for Erik could now take his knight. He did, mercilessly.

“It has little to do with age,” Charles tried again. His voice was a lot less cocky and self-assured, and was more carefully probing. “And you have little experience.”

Erik glowered darkly at him, his jaw muscles twitching from clenching his teeth to keep from saying something vicious in response to that insulting comment. Charles’s eyes suddenly flicked up to his, astonished and guilty. “I didn’t mean it that way, Erik,” he assured Erik hurriedly, his knee bumping into the chess board, rattling the figures, when he quickly leaned forward. With the same move, he reached out to touch Erik’s thigh, but apparently decided otherwise halfway through the movement, stilling the rattling chess board instead.

“Then, what did you mean?” Erik challenged quietly, darkly, his eyes still narrowed to slits that could fool anyone into believing he was relaxed and playful, when in reality he was only tenuously holding on to control of his anger. Erik leaned back in his chair to put a few more centimetres between himself and Charles.

Charles bit his lip, sucking on one corner for a moment, obviously very carefully planning how to approach the subject. When his lower lip was released from his teeth it was startlingly red.

Erik stared. He noticed that his breath had quickened somewhat, so he schooled it back into a leisurely pace. Heat was pooling in his groin. Now he wished he hadn’t leaned so far back, that he could cross his legs with a relaxed gesture, but executing too many movements one after another could be read as fidgeting and could let Charles think that he was nervous. Erik was not nervous. He had simply run out of options on how to react to this. It was so outside everything he was used to, he had no trained response. It made him restless inside.

Charles had still not come up with a suitable answer to Erik’s earlier question. He looked a little cornered, Erik thought.

A satisfied smirk tugged at the corners of Erik’s mouth at that.

“Come on, Charles. Show me, then,” Erik sneered mockingly, “Show me this experience you’re so proud of.” 

Charles’s eyes shot up to his again, wide and surprised. _Very, very blue_ , Erik thought. He never thought Charles would. He was too proper, too well-brought-up to show another – another _man_ , especially – what he did in the bedroom, the sordid, illegal acts he had gotten up to during his time.

But Charles surprised him, then. The movement in which his fingers shot up to his temple was so sloppy and quick that Erik had no time to protest.

 _His fingers are shaking_ , was the only thing Erik had the time to think, before he was assaulted with images, smells, sounds and feelings. For a moment he saw so much, so hastily and all at once, that his head snapped back of its own accord, cracking into the wooden frame of the high-backed armchair.

“Sorry,” Charles whispered rather miserably, tearing his fingers away from the side of his head, and as soon as it had begun, it was over again. But Erik had seen enough. His breath came in rough pants, his head hurt, and his heart raced, but all this didn’t register as much as the images Charles had pushed at him.

“They’re all younger and quite feminine,” Erik remarked with careful nonchalance.

“Well, of course.” Charles looked puzzled by Erik’s remark, as if that was normal and expected.

Erik didn’t like things people expected. It meant they took them for granted, and if you didn’t want to deliver, you were the one on the outside, _you_ were strange and not normal. He took a breath, carefully trying again to quench the anger that threatened to rise at Charles’s innocent ignorance. “I’m not,” Erik pointed out with predatory calm.

That made an uncomfortable shadow flicker over Charles’s face. His breath hitched, but then his gentle demeanour was back, his carefully maintained control he displayed in any situation. Erik felt proud to have managed to rattle his cage, but also cheated because his success had been so short-lived.

“I do enjoy women, Erik.” _I am not queer_ , seemed to hang unspoken in the space between them, hovering just out of grasp, but searing its meaning directly into Erik’s head.

“But you want to fuck me.” Erik said it deliberately as a statement, not as a question that Charles could refute.

“Please, Erik, don’t be so crude!” Charles said with disapproval, “I find you attractive – your mind, your nature, everything. I’d like to sleep with you, not _fuck_ you.”

“I’m not like them,” Erik said, pointing at Charles’s head to indicate the images of all the young men he had seen.

“I know you’re not as experienced,” Charles said gently.

 _That’s not what I meant, you arrogant prick_ , Erik thought darkly, earning himself a confused look as Charles seemed to only pick up the surface feeling of annoyance that accompanied that thought.

“You have no idea, what I want to do,” Erik warned quietly, with deceptive calm. This might be new to him, but he knew himself. If there was something Erik knew best, it was what he wanted. Even in a situation as foreign as this, he had instantly assimilated what Charles had made him see, and developed an idea, a delicate inkling of what he might like and what he craved. He doubted it was what Charles had in mind, but then he had no experience to draw from, so he would need to improvise.

“Oh, Erik, my friend,” Charles started gently, caringly. It was so sweet and well-meaning that it made Erik’s stomach cramp.

He didn’t give Charles time to finish that sentence or, in fact, to react at all. With a lunge, he was out of his seat, sweeping the chess board and the table aside, pieces scattering, leaping across the distance between himself and Charles with the ferocity of a big cat. Charles’s eyes widened comically just a fraction of a moment before the impact sent the chair tipping back, both men falling with it.

Erik had the presence of mind and precise enough control of his movements to grab the back of Charles’s head to prevent him from cracking it open on the wooden frame of the chair as they cashed with it onto the floor of the study. The impact slammed their chests and groins together hard. Erik had anticipated that, managing with grace to soften the impact to something less painful by taking his weight a little off Charles as they landed, slamming his knees into the ground.

Erik didn’t want to hurt Charles – not really – despite the anger he felt boiling in him towards the man. He gritted his teeth at the sharp pain flaring up his thighs. No matter, he could take it.

What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was how different his anger suddenly felt. It was searing hot and almost overpowering in its strength as always, but it burned up and down his spine in dazzlingly quick pulses, always pooling hotly between his legs after every wave.

The other thing he hadn’t predicted was the hardness he could feel against his own and the choked moan Charles didn’t seem capable of holding in.

With a feral grin flashing over his face, Erik let his whole weight sink down on Charles, forgetting the sting in his knees and the weird tangled position they were in.

God, this felt good. He never thought it would. He knew what he liked, of course; he was not a monk. He had just always assumed that what he did for himself would always feel better than if someone else was involved. But this… this was intoxicating. He could feel Charles, very intimately: the straining erection trapped underneath his own, the heat seeping through fine wool trousers, and even the minute, involuntary shifting of Charles’s hips. There were breathy sounds, little whimpers carried on Charles’s erratic breaths. Erik could never have dreamed they would sound so wonderful, making him yearn – helplessly _yearn_ – to keep Charles making them.

Erik pushed himself up a little on his knees and then let all his body weight carry him down again, relishing Charles’s sharp yell that morphed into a rough groan as their groins were pushed together hard. Charles’s hands fluttered up, trying to get a hold of Erik’s shoulders, his face, but Erik just grabbed them, slamming them down on either side of Charles’s head, simultaneously rolling his hips again to see if he could make Charles groan a second time. He could, he noticed with smug satisfaction.

Charles had started to sweat, the moisture beading on his forehead and dampening the hair around his face. He looked flushed. Erik wanted to know what that tasted like. He leaned down, avoiding Charles’s lips, as Charles turned his head to capture Erik’s, to let his tongue dip out and flick against where Charles’s hair began at the side of his neck.

Salty and tangy and good. Erik groaned, heartfelt and rumbling deeply. Charles smelled good, too, Erik noted, letting his tongue flick out again and linger on the flushed skin. Charles whimpered his name. _Louder!_ Erik thought, another groan falling from his lips in answer, washing against that damp skin. Charles shivered.

Erik leaned back up a little, looking Charles in the eyes. Charles looked like he was enjoying this, and from the hard bulge Erik still felt pressing persistently into the underside of his own cock trapped in his clothes, Charles did enjoy this very, very much. But he also looked confused and a little conflicted.

Erik frowned at that, but leaned back down, letting his whole body cover Charles’s, his weight pressing him down. Erik still held Charles’s wrists pressed to the ground. His fingers clenched and unclenched repeatedly, but Charles made no move to free himself. Their cocks rubbed against each other again, trapped by fabric, and Erik bit Charles’s neck – probably a little harder than he should have – but Charles whimpered and groaned, and yelped so beautifully that Erik could just follow his body’s responses like Hänsel and Gretel followed their trail of breadcrumbs.

But suddenly Charles froze, the soft sounds he was making cutting off abruptly. The lovely rose blush drained from his face. “Erik!” Charles choked out. “Erik, God, stop! Stop!” 

Erik did at once, the panic in Charles’s voice plunging him in ice water.

“God, Erik, please, be _gentle_!”

Erik was momentarily puzzled, letting go of Charles’s wrists. What had just happened? His chest was rising and falling sharply, as he pushed himself back a bit to stare at Charles. Charles had liked this, Erik was sure of it. Well, he was _relatively_ sure. He had never really felt the arousal of another man, but this felt pretty much like he was doing it right. In fact, Charles was as aroused as ever; Erik could feel it still. He was so very hard himself, he felt like one touch from Charles could make him come embarrassingly powerfully intensely in his pants.

“Gentle,” Charles advised, calmer, more in control again. It made Erik’s anger bubble up anew. This advice, this instruction, order, regulation, restraint.

Rein in your anger to become accepted, to become presentable to society, to become something you’re _not_. Erik’s breath caught in his throat at the realisation. Suddenly, his anger died a quick death, bleeding away into nothingness. He was not angry anymore – only confused – and he felt something surprisingly like hurt and rejection. That was new, too.

“Please, be gentle,” Charles whispered.

 _But I’m not gentle,_ Erik thought. _I’m not a fucking bird or a damsel in distress, or your whimpering boy! I’m not like **them**!_

Charles stared at Erik, no comprehension on his face; he wasn’t reading him. His chest rose and fell rapidly under Erik’s, the buttons of his cardigan rustling against Erik’s shirt. Erik thought that Charles looked trapped, afraid – not so much of him, but of something else – something that was going on behind Charles’s own eyes, something private that Erik had no way of knowing.

Slowly, Charles calmed, colour returning to his face. One of his hands slid up Erik’s arm tentatively, flutteringly, as if he wasn’t sure he was welcome. Erik just waited. Again, he didn’t know how to react. Anger and violence he could deal with, but this was alien to him. But for Charles’s sake, he would bear it. He would just wait and see what would happen, and maybe… maybe this persistent strangeness would resolve into a new experience which Erik could then make sense of.

Charles rose up, the hand on Erik’s shoulder pulling him down a little. He kissed Erik then, leaning in slowly, letting his closed lips brush Erik’s.

It felt nice, like it had in the closet in Erik’s room. Erik was glad there were no feathers involved this time. Charles’s earlier panic still lingered in Erik’s mind, cool and warning, so Erik held still, leaning over him, letting Charles lead. He didn’t want to spook him.

“Will you invite me into your bed?” Charles breathed the words tentatively against Erik’s lips. The request sounded strangely formal to Erik. He dismissed the notion, letting his tongue flick out between his lips to lave against Charles’s bottom lip as he nodded Charles shuddered, his hips jerking up for a moment, before he seemed to remember himself and hold still.

Erik wanted Charles. He knew that Charles wanted him, too, and it made another strange emotion rise like a fog - warm and moist, there one moment and dissolving the next, only to swirl back into existence, thin and insubstantial. Slowly Erik crawled off of Charles, looking around.

Erik didn’t want to spook the kids if they came in here and saw the mess. Charles seemed to have the same idea. Erik righted the chair as Charles collected the scattered chess pieces and set up the board again.

Erik watched Charles crawl across the floor looking for the last pawn. _So incredibly like Charles_ , Erik thought, _always looking for the last lost sheep to return to his flock. The original WASP with a heart of gold and more compassion than anyone needs. Charles knows best._

 _But then, maybe he really does_ , Erik mused, seeing the last pawn behind one of the legs of his chair. He didn’t say anything, he just watched as Charles’s fingers groped the fluffy rug near it. Charles found it eventually and put it in its rightful place on the board.

That was it, apparently. Erik would go up to his room with Charles and sleep with him. He definitely wanted to, but somehow there was still this persistent anger swirling up with that hazy new emotion. He was angry at Charles, yet he wanted him, wanted to tear his clothes off, make him moan and groan and writhe - underneath him, above him, he didn’t care. He wanted to rip everything Charles’s upbringing had taught him from his body, just wanted to have and enjoy the pure creature that Erik was sure was caged inside.

Charles led them upstairs to Erik’s room, stepping inside like he owned it. And he did, Erik reminded himself, but Erik also felt strangely like it was his and Charles should have asked to be let in.

Inside, Charles went straight to the closet, rummaging around in it for a moment.

“I want you to put this on,” he said, holding up a satiny black dress that looked a lot like lingerie with its dark red lace trimmings. Charles looked hopeful, boyish and innocent. He seemed more settled, in control again. Erik’s stomach clenched a little.

“Why?” Erik asked, feeling uncomfortable and out of place as he watched Charles walk up to his bed, sitting down and then leaning slowly back and looking at him with that strange assessing glimmer again.

“Because you’ll be beautiful in this,” Charles answered matter of fact.

 _I’m not now?_ Erik thought impulsively and felt stupid and childish and so very girlish about having that thought. He divested himself quickly of his clothes and pulled the garment over his head, just to be doing something, because, compared to the thought he had just had, this felt less feminine. He felt like he was settling for the lesser evil.

Charles’s eyes raked over the fabric clinging to Erik’s thighs, sweeping up to nipples the cool, slithering fabric had coaxed into hardened nubs. Standing before Charles like this, being looked at and admired, Erik was not so sure anymore that this had been such a good idea, but he didn’t get the chance to change his mind as Charles let one hand slide down his own torso, fingers expertly opening his belt and slipping below the waistband of his trousers. Erik was mesmerised by the slow movement. He stared slack-mouthed at Charles, who had started to stroke himself in his half open trousers.

Erik felt cold, like his stomach had just plummeted to somewhere between his hip bones, but then he felt hot and flushed. It was like his body could not decide and was confusing opposing temperatures for the same thing.

“Turn around, Erik,” Charles ordered breathily. Erik did automatically, feeling the lace hem caress his naked thighs, hearing the rustle of Charles’s movements behind him.

Erik had known he would not be able to close the zipper of the dress; his shoulders were too broad for that, so he hadn’t even attempted it, being careful not wanting to damage the dress. The cool metal of the slider at the end of the zip was not lying against his skin, but he knew where it was. He could feel it with his gift. It hovered just over the crack of his buttocks, kept strangely afloat by the fine fabric it was expertly sewn into. The upper part of his buttocks must be visible like this; he could definitely feel the change of temperature as air flowed from covered to naked skin with his slow turn. He could hear the exact moment Charles’s eyes travelled down the curve of his spine to his half exposed arse, as it was punctuated by a sharp moan.

The sound was beautiful and Erik closed his eyes for a moment, imagining he was above Charles making him moan like that.

Erik felt uncomfortable. His skin felt like it was crawling with something everywhere the dress touched him. He felt less aroused, and was content about it. That was so confusing, anyway.

Maybe this was normal – this confusion. So many normal things had always felt strange and uncomfortable to him. The touch of another person always made him antsy, reminding him of clinical touches; the closeness that other people seemed to crave had always suffocated him before. And things that others perceived as strange and frightening had been Erik’s sole source of comfort: the feel of a knife slicing the air just before it buried itself hilt-deep in flesh that deserved it, the metallic tang of blood on the air he had known for most of his life. He was used to it. The familiarity of it was comforting.

But this here… this feeling was strange. Maybe it was strange because it was new, and this was what it should feel like. Maybe he just had to get used to it, like he got used to his room, to the closet, to Charles. He could get used to Charles’s strange requests. He could manage. And although he could never be normal – he didn’t want to be – he could hopefully manage this somehow, if only the strangeness would go away. Perhaps it just needed time.

He closed his eyes and listened to Charles’s moans.

xXx


	3. Chapter 3

Erik didn’t sleep for most of that night. When Charles was gone, he took a long shower, letting the water sluice over his body, washing away the itchy prickle of lace and the cool cling of satin.

He stood at the window for hours afterwards, his face turned towards the dark grounds, but he was feeling for the slight draft coming through the slit under the window with his finger tips, his eyes not seeing the grass and the woods or the clouds outside.

When dawn had just started to colour the horizon a sickly yellowish mauve, Erik turned from the window. His fingers felt slightly numb, the constant draft having cooled them during the night. He turned to his bed with the intention to finally get some sleep, but all he could see were rumpled sheets and too much space – space he would fill alone.

He turned to the closet instead.

He didn’t like the closet at all, but the space was smaller, the walls closer together. He could fill this by himself with his own presence. He would feel less alone. At least he hoped so.

He took his pillow from the bed, peeling back the duvet leaving the side Charles had sat on untouched. He could still smell him on the sheets, could smell the faint scent of sweat and semen and warm clothes. His nostrils flared for a moment, and he followed the sudden urge to let his head drop into the rumpled sheets, inhaling deeply through nose and open mouth. His fingers clenched around the pillow and duvet still in his hands. He would have liked to press Charles into the mattress, keep him there with his weight alone, biting and tasting skin again, and – most importantly – making him moan.

Erik let his tongue flick out, but all he could taste was the dry, sterile cotton of the sheets. He could smell Charles’s presence still, but he could not taste it.

Angry with himself for giving in to such pitiful urges, he jerked back, ripped the duvet and Charles’s pillow from the bed, too, and stomped into the closet, depositing it all in an untidy heap on the floor and curling up on top of it. Closing his eyes, he let his breathing slow until it was regular, and the anger had retreated to its usual space behind his breastbone, then he opened his eyes and looked around from his new perspective on the floor.

From down on the floor, the dresses looked more like dresses and less like the empty skins of people. Erik preferred that. His eyes strayed over the different colours muted by the early morning dimness in the room. He saw the ends of the magenta feather boa between the blush-pink Chanel two-piece and a smartly cut black evening dress. He was glad that the weird lingerie he had worn hours earlier for Charles was not here in the closet with him; his skin still itched. He had taken the garment off – with care, because it wasn’t his – as soon as Charles had left, but had petulantly just let it lie where it dropped to the floor. He didn’t want to have it near him.

Relaxing all his muscles with focus and care, Erik let his eyes drift over all the other items neatly catalogued on their hangers. Maybe he could get used to them in time. Maybe spending time here in the closet would actually breed familiarity and finally ease the strangeness, the weird, clammy sensation still crawling under his skin. And that persistent, but misty nebulous new emotion blurring in and out of focus, which he had no idea how to describe and shied away from naming altogether.

He must have finally fallen asleep. He woke with a start when he felt a warm hand on his cheek. Before he opened his eyes, he could already smell tweed and cologne, and the familiar warmth of Charles. How the man had managed to sneak up on him in his sleep without waking him was a mystery to Erik, and he was deeply unnerved by it.

Dry lips caressed his softly, meant to rouse him gently from a deep sleep, but Erik did not sleep deeply. He slept because it was a necessity, but it was never restful. The slide of warm and tender lips on his was nice, though. Erik slowly relaxed his mouth, never opening his eyes, letting Charles deepen the kiss. He remembered the cold wash of Charles’s panic from the night before, and he didn’t want to startle Charles again. If he could help it, Erik would never startle him like that again.

Their kiss gradually grew in intensity, getting wetter with tongues involved. Erik felt his blood rush in his ears, felt the now familiar tingle in his groin and the insistent pressure in his cock in response to Charles’s proximity. Erik moaned quietly, wanting to turn them over so that he was on top and could grind their cocks together like they had done in the study the other night. Erik wanted to hold Charles down and have him writhe in pleasure because of it.

“Erik,” Charles whispered a little desperate between their lips. Erik opened his eyes, but Charles’s were still closed, his face looking intently focused, but beautifully flushed. Erik wanted to own him. He wanted Charles on his knees, kissing and licking him, like he had seen so many of Charles’s ‘boys’ do. He wanted to grab that full hair of his and just hold him close, pull and pinch and bite and just have him.

Charles shuddered, groaning lowly, his head sliding to the side and resting against Erik’s shoulder for a moment, his breath panting wetly against Erik’s throat. Erik liked that, too. He wanted to be touched now; he didn’t care how, exactly. He just wanted to get more contact – preferably skin on skin – and he wanted it to be wet and rough and devastating for both of them.

Charles suddenly surged a little closer, his weight settling comfortably on Erik’s body as he wrapped his lips around the outer shell of Erik’s left ear. A wave of sweetly electric goosebumps raced down Erik’s side from this point of contact, making him buck up once uncontrollably into Charles. Erik heard a huff of amusement in between the wet sound of lips being pulled back from teeth and the smacking sound of a tongue moving against skin as Charles gently worried the cartilage of Erik’s ear.

Erik was powerless to clamp down on his moans. He was so loud that Charles gently but firmly slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sounds, but he never stopped his ministrations on Erik’s ear. Erik gritted his teeth against this controlling display of disapproval, and then bit down on the fleshy part of Charles’s upper palm in retaliation. Erik was careful not to hurt him, just gripping the skin enough to make Charles take notice. A groan exploded loudly against Erik’s ear as Charles bucked into him now.

“Erik,” Charles panted again. He fumbled with his other hand between their bodies frantically, opening his trousers, gripping Erik’s right hand, and shoving it inside with his own, wrapping it around his cock and starting to stroke himself with Erik’s hand.

Erik bit harder into Charles’s palm. A powerful wave of arousal threatened to sweep him up and wash him away with it as he felt hot skin and the leaking moisture of precome under his fingers. Charles groaned again. His breath was hot and erratic against Erik’s ear, washing in a staccato rhythm down his throat.

Erik turned his head sideways, Charles’s now slack hand slipping from his mouth in the process. As soon as he was free to do it, he bit down hard on Charles’s throat. It would leave a bruise and Erik wanted there to be one. He could tell by the sudden groan and the sharp thrust of Charles’s cock into the curled fingers of Erik’s fist inside his trousers that he liked this very much.

Erik suddenly imagined Charles on a bed, immobilised by the cast iron frame, writhing in pleasure, his cock hard and leaking for Erik’s attention, and Erik refusing to grant it. Then a flicker of change: Erik bowed over Charles’s back, holding his hips steady with one hand, fine fabrics – satin, silk, lace, and mink and chinchilla fur – strewn around them, and Charles’s face buried in it while Erik put more force into his thrusts, pulling himself towards the bed frame with his other hand. It was rather primal, he observed with a weirdly detached calm. He liked the idea very much, liked the brutality and the aggression of it, and Charles’s acceptance – his obvious craving for this consensual violence.

And then he suddenly realised he was not himself in these thoughts.

As soon as that thought occurred to him, Charles froze above him. He jerked back the next moment, scrambling away from Erik into the other corner of the closet as fast as he could. His chest heaved frantically and he looked as white as a sheet. Erik blinked at Charles, not comprehending anything for a moment. These situations flipped on him so quickly. How was he ever supposed to come to grips with this?

Charles just stared at him in shock. His hands fluttered up to his mouth, rubbing over it. “I’m sorry,” he whispered feebly, and he tucked his now flaccid cock away, zipped up, and was on his feet and out the door so quickly that Erik could do nothing but stare after him.

And then the disharmony Erik had felt underlying the fantasy about the iron bed frame told him what had really happened. They hadn’t been his imaginings, he suddenly realised.

They had been Charles’s.

xXx

Charles could not avoid Erik. There was no way he would be able to get away – they were training a group of teenagers for war together, after all – but it seemed that Charles could pretend very well. He was exceptionally good at pretending: pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary. It left Erik feeling angry and confused. Again.

Erik spent two days thinking through what had happened intensively, analysing it as best he could before he did anything. He wanted to do this right, rationally, _gently_.

He found nothing wrong with Charles’s fantasy, or his own. They might have seemed strange to normal people, but then the two of them were not normal, and if they both had these fantasies – and, Erik thought with a slight tingle in his gut, their imaginary roles complemented each other so beautifully – why was there even a problem?

Erik had seen the horrors of this world, experienced them himself, his body proof of the extremes to which normal people would go. He was aware that _he_ was not normal, that normal people could sleep at night and not experience the smell of blood and disinfectant and the sterile taste of human ash in their noses and throats. If anyone should be disturbed by this level of violence of these fantasies (could he really call it violence if both of them wanted it, and it was so unexpectedly exciting, raw, and hot?), it was clearly him and not Charles.

Charles had always tried to combine and unite what was ultimately not reconcilable. He tried, and ultimately managed very well, to fit into a world that was not his, but he did it essentially by hiding who he was.

For a moment Erik felt nothing but disdain for him at the thought. _This little man with his great ideas._

But, who was he – Erik – to judge Charles? They were brothers in arms, friends. Equals.

Erik took a deep breath, fought the anger still surging under his skin with practiced ease, and calmed his confusion. He would try Charles’s way – use Charles’s own tactics on him. He would talk and see what happened. For the first time in his life, Erik was curious to see what would actually come of a conversation about emotions. It couldn’t really be any more complicated than talking world politics and social ethics over a chess board. He was willing to compromise to a point, and if Charles needed him to adapt a little, then Erik would try. He was stubborn, yes, but not incapable of change.

When he opened the door to his room, he found the other Xavier sibling waiting for him in his bed.

“Well,” he breathed with as little annoyance as he could manage, “This is a surprise.”

“The nice kind?” Raven asked boldly, obviously trying hard to present an air of relaxed cool and playful cheekiness. Erik hesitated and frowned. He preferred the real Raven, not this carbon copy of a Hugh Hefner playmate.

And why were both Xaviers so focused on him all of a sudden? Had they talked? Was this maybe Charles’s way to make Erik lose interest in him, to get him with Raven? That seemed really crude. Surely he wouldn’t do that to his sister? Surely, he wouldn’t be so cruel? Erik decided then that he would at least give Charles the benefit of the doubt… But that was it, wasn’t it? There was still doubt. Erik doubted Charles. He knew now that what Charles did and what he said was not necessarily what he really thought.

Erik tried to dissuade Raven, but she was very persistent. Her relentlessness made Erik pause. He could see in her the need to fit in – not by conforming like Charles, but by being accepted for who she was. Erik decided that maybe he could do something good for her. He knew now how important physical comfort was for other people, and how easy it could be to give it. Wouldn’t it be compassionate to show her kindness?

xXx


	4. Chapter 4

Raven left late in the evening. She walked out of Erik’s room naked in different hues of beautiful blue and fiery red, light catching on the raised bumps of her scaly skin. She left her dressing gown behind. For a long while, Erik looked at it, staring down at it where it lay discarded on the desk chair.

For her, this was a second skin, the discarded carapace of a person she had never been. She needed to be rid of this fabric, this false skin, for others to really see and accept her – for her to accept herself – whereas it seemed that Erik had to put on a false skin for Charles to accept him. It seemed very wrong to Erik when he thought about it in this way. It made him angry, but he felt it was for the right reasons. Maybe Raven had done something good for him, too.

The dressing gown was wrinkled, haphazardly draped over the back of the chair. Light and shadow caught in the creamy-white terrycloth. Erik leaned down and just touched his nose to the fluffy collar and inhaled. It smelled like her: light but earthy, caught between a girl’s and a woman’s scent. It was a nice smell, a wholesome and warm one, but it didn’t excite him at all. On the contrary, it calmed him. The clothes in the closet didn’t smell like this at all. They smelled like nothing in particular – sterile like any fabric would, with the mixed scents of dust and long storage. Not even traces of perfume were left on those clothes – nothing that could identify them as something a woman had ever worn. They were dead outer linings for a body that was utterly different in shape to Erik’s own.

He took the dressing gown into the closet and found an empty hanger for it. The creamy white didn’t seem to fit in with the flamboyant colours of the other items. It seemed Charles’s mother had liked colour. Erik liked colour, too. In fact, the white of the dressing gown would have been unnervingly reminiscent of a lab coat if it wasn’t for Raven’s warm smell emanating from the fluffy terrycloth. It was a neutral blotch of non-colour hanging there between all those colours. It was strange to Erik how his eyes informed him with creeping coldness of the danger of this colour, when, to his nose the womanly scent was calming. It was this disassociation between two conflicting instincts that reminded Erik so much of Charles, and he realised why he’d had the idea to hang Raven’s robe there with all the other clothing. Maybe now he could get used to these conflicting emotions, practice until he was perfect at it – until he was perfectly comfortable with something so wrong.

Erik grabbed the terrycloth again with both hands and buried his nose in it, breathing in deeply, while he stared at the other dresses in the closet around him. The disharmony was still there, almost overpowering him and setting his insides into turmoil, but the impact seemed to lessen somewhat – or Erik had gotten better at bearing it. He closed his eyes for a moment just to concentrate on the calming scent.

“Erik!” Charles exclaimed from behind him with deceptive cheer. Erik’s eyes snapped open, then narrowed at the casual display of relaxed joy he could hear and feel emanating from Charles’s voice and mind.

“Charles,” Erik acknowledged calmly, hiding the undercurrent of sudden annoyance at Charles having snuck up on him again. He let the hem of Raven’s robe drop and turned slowly.

Charles’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a moment, as they lingered on the fluffy cloth swinging slowly behind Erik on its hanger. “So, I see you’re the one who put that idea unbecoming of a lady into her head, then.” It sounded like a neutral statement, but Erik could feel a lapping of annoyance and betrayal behind the words, thinly veiled by a veneer of civility.

“She was born that way, Charles. It’s what she is,” Erik replied evenly.

“We’re all born naked, but it’s generally accepted that we _do_ put some clothes on!”

Erik had the feeling that this wasn’t really the issue between them. He had the sneaking suspicion that Charles was talking about something else, like he was using the wrong words to say the right thing.

“Charles,” Erik tried more calmly, “she shouldn’t have to hide. She’s so beautiful like that.”

“Oh, I see,” Charles gritted out between his teeth, “you just want her to run around naked so you can freely gawp at her. My little sister! Just because I don’t want to play into your sick, twisted fantasies, you get my sister involved! How could you?!”

 _What?_ Erik just stared at him, totally incredulous and very, very confused. Clearly, they weren’t really talking about Raven anymore. Why couldn’t Charles just say what he meant? It would be so much less complicated and it wouldn’t make Erik so angry at having to sift through the telepath’s jumbled assumptions. This was suddenly a lot more difficult than Erik could handle. He could deal with hard, uncomfortable emotions and situations – he was trained for that – but subtle, fickle things like this deception, this dancing around the actual issue required subtleness, and Erik was many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them.

Maybe this offered an opening to finally confront what this was really about. Maybe they could now address the disharmony between what Charles seemed to want and what he made Erik do instead. Charles was big on talking, negotiating, compromising; Erik was not, but maybe he could try this approach for once.

“About the other day…” Before Erik had finished his sentence, he realised he’d stepped wrong already as he saw Charles’s eyes become hard and focused and very distant. Maybe bluntness wasn’t the way forward, but Erik didn’t see any other option. He wasn’t a tactful man. He didn’t know how to be. He pursued what he wanted and did it well, usually, but this was so much harder.

“I’m not interested in Raven,” Erik said instead. Charles didn’t look any happier to hear that. Erik could feel the faintest inkling of why that was. He could almost physically sense the suppressed feel of mink fur and fine fabric against his naked chest, only it wasn’t his chest, he knew.

Charles stepped closer, opening his arms a little. It was a small concession, but it was a welcoming gesture, nonetheless. Erik breached the remaining distance between them and let himself be enfolded in Charles’s arms. It was a warm and full-bodied hug – a hug between men – but there was still a gentleness there that only emphasised the underlying sadness encroaching on them both.

“Oh, Erik,” Charles murmured softly against the side of his face as he hugged him – clearly a good-bye for the night. _Why can’t this be different? Why can’t this be easier? Why did I have to fall for you?_

 _…and not a woman_ , Erik felt more than heard the emotion carry the meaning to him as Charles closed the door behind him. He was sure Charles had meant to keep all his thoughts private, and it hurt all the more to feel them still, to feel the conviction and the agony behind it that drove Charles deeper and deeper into unhappiness. Charles might not be very compassionate towards Erik – not when it came to this – but that was something Erik was used to; he could deal with that, but feeling how much Charles also suffered underneath it all was unbearable.

Erik could take all the hurt dealt to him, but witnessing the suffering of others was something he couldn’t bear.

Erik sighed deeply, unhappily, and turned towards the open door of the closet.

xXx

Erik stood in front of the oval mirror propped up on the dresser next to the open door of the closet, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and opened them. There he stood, his mirror image, in a nicely flowing red satin chemise with its wonderful black bobbin lace reaching just past the apex of his legs. He could see nothing alluring about this. He had tried to look – really look – opening and closing his eyes repeatedly and trying to see for himself, but the only thing that registered was that his penis was partially visible, and he felt cold for the slithering feel of the satin. His cock looked ridiculous like this, hanging free, its base just barely covered by the black lace, his balls timidly nestled behind it, seemingly trying to hide in the curls of his pubic hair in quiet shame.

He turned away and around, chancing a glance over his shoulder at his back. It was the same sorry story there; the erotic faux corset lacing spanning over his broad back was gaping so widely that it looked like the fabric had split at the back, almost down to where his hips tapered, making the hem of the chemise fall in soft folds, making it look too big. His back muscles seemed to push through the v-shaped opening, rippling with every movement, fluid and alien in their frame of slithering fabric, hemmed by lacing trying to reign his muscular back in with its flimsy, shimmering crisscross. It just looked stupid.

He felt stupid, too. He wasn’t a woman and would never be one. These dresses Charles seemed to like so much would never fit him at all. His body looked ridiculous. His manhood looked like a joke, seemingly trimmed in black bobbin lace. Erik felt familiar hatred creep up from his gut, cold and hard like steel. He hated that he looked at himself again and again in the mirror, checking and rechecking his body. He didn’t take the dress off, though. It stayed on even when he went to bed. Maybe he could get used to this, too, like he got used to the dresses in the closet. They didn’t fill him with that odd impression of dead skins hanging there anymore, but then Raven’s robe was in there, too, and Erik imagined that he could smell her soft scent even from where he lay in bed.

It took Erik a long time to get comfortable. Somehow, the dress felt even more slippery and alien when a duvet was putting weight on it, shifting it over his skin with every breath. He never realised how heavy the duvet was until it managed to catch the dress and slip and slide it over his torso. The lace tickled his belly and the base of his cock until Erik couldn’t bear it any longer. He pulled the fabric up to his stomach, turned on his side and trapped it between his arms folded tightly around himself.

He fell asleep like that, but it wasn’t restful and he didn’t stay asleep for long.

Erik awoke in a clammy sweat with a sluggish feeling of suffocation. He took a few deep breaths like Schmidt had taught him to do when the nightmares kept him from sleeping. He needed his sleep. He’d needed to be in the best condition for that man – a well groomed tool, an efficient weapon.

Erik tried to get back to sleep, but he felt restless. The damn dress had wound around his torso like a tight cocoon. Erik sighed. Sleep, it seemed, would not come to him again any time soon.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and tried haphazardly to get the chemise disentangled from around him. When he had managed that, he put on a pair of his favourite tan linen trousers, stuffing the itchy lace firmly into the waistband, got Raven’s soft white robe from the closet, and put it over the whole ensemble, cinching the tie tightly. It didn’t feel so bad like this, and the robe still smelled of woman, so that was nice and calming.

But what to do in a house this big and pompous in the middle of the night if one couldn’t sleep?

Erik opted for going to the library.

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working on the last (sixth) chapter. It's hard work.... I take some small liberties with what happens when (I think I already did with this part anyway. Not sure. Anyway, hope you're all enjoying it so far.  
> *waves to Garnettrees for the lovely comments*


	5. Chapter 5

_Paiderasteia._

For a long while Erik just stared at the spine of the thick book with its title stamped in broad red letters on the slightly glossy black cover. He took a deep breath and finally picked it up, opening it and letting the pages fall where chance would have it.

It opened on a coloured photograph of a black vase. Two stylised reddish brown men were depicted on it, one taking the other from behind, his penis visibly penetrating the anus of the other.

Erik swallowed, quickly turning the page, his fingers quivering. He felt oddly light-headed and wondered how often Charles had looked at these images, and what he might have been thinking about them at the time.

The next page had some text, but also a smaller picture of a cracked plate of some sort. Again two men were shown: one with a beard which was probably braided or a very curly, and the other hairless and definitely younger. The older seemed to reach out towards the younger man’s chest with longing, his fingertips barely touching it. The younger had his head slightly bowed, either in demure shyness, or maybe because he was following the movement of the hand about to touch him with his eyes, mesmerised. Erik liked his second interpretation better, catching himself almost wishing for Charles to want to touch his chest like that, knowing Charles never would.

Erik snapped the book closed with an angry sigh. Maybe Greek philosophies and their application weren’t for late, sleepless nights. History in general probably wasn’t.

Erik put the book back and walked over to the biology section.

Biology, the natural order of things – this would make Erik calmer. The idea of this reoccurring, natural cycle between living things was soothing in its immutable and never-ending spin. The strong consumed the weak until they themselves became too old and weak and were usurped by beings stronger than themselves. It was soothing, Erik thought, to be part of this, to know his place and know that the path he followed was the natural one, in order with the world, and already set for him by Nature.

He picked up a book at random and found a heavy volume on the lives of dragonflies in his hands. Erik smiled, feeling pleased. Dragonflies were the most voracious and most agile of insect hunters. Even as larvae, they were killers: their huge mandibles and their stealth and agility worthy of any predatory mammal. Once full-grown, though, they were not only wonderful predators, but also beautiful, coming into their own with age and maturity. Erik leafed through the book, skipping the pages with text, concentrating on the pictures. They were black and white shots, but the detail visible was astonishing: the many-facetted eyes with their dark, glossy-looking pseudopupils, the wings black-veined and seemingly fragile, but strong and stiff in flight, too fast for the camera to capture.

Turning page after page, Erik looked through the book, his appetite for more images increasing with every new picture, until he stopped abruptly. His breath caught, and he felt cold and oddly hot at the same time. Erik stared at the only coloured picture in the book so far, fascinated, enthralled. It showed a dragonfly moulting. The outer carapace was splitting open, the insect fighting free, its huge eyes like the head of a battering ram, shining like a many-facetted metal helmet. Its wings had not yet expanded, but were already pushing out from the bulging back that housed the huge flight muscles. The purplish red pattern on the chitin was iridescent, seeming to Erik to shimmer with vitality. It looked almost like shining sequins, red and glittering, but even more beautiful, the old skin a dead hull beside it, opaque and dull.

As he continued to stare at the picture, his fascination transformed into arousal. At first, Erik was confused and taken aback by his very sexual reaction, but then he slowly realised his unconscious mind had already gone ahead of him, feeding him images of strength and beauty, of bodies intertwined, muscles bulging and working, sweat slipping – shimmering and salty – down flanks, small pinkish nipples wrinkled and erect, forceful movements and deep groans. Erik remembered those sounds. His mind supplied him with a direct memory of the deep groan Erik had pushed out of Charles as he had sat on Charles’s lap in the study. It seemed already to have been a lifetime ago: the fallen chair, the flare of pain in Erik’s knees, and then the groan – the wonderful and enticing full groan.

Erik shuddered and the heavy book in his hands quivered.

xXx

Charles’s room was bathed in shallow, blue light coming in through the half-closed curtains. Erik closed the door carefully, but Charles stirred, no doubt instinctively feeling the other consciousness closing in on his own in his head. With a rustle of starched sheets, Charles turned over, rubbing his face, his bleary, sleepy eyes only slowly focusing on Erik.

Erik didn’t say anything; he just kept his eyes trained on Charles as he opened his trousers, let them fall to the floor and stepped out of the legs, the movement freeing the thin satin of the chemise underneath. Erik then took off the robe he’d pulled over the garment, when he left his room, and just looked at Charles for a reaction. His cock was stiff, lifting the hem. It had left a small wet patch on the fine fabric when it had all still been bunched up in Erik’s finely tailored trousers. The cursed bobbin lace was tickling him. He felt like an idiot.

He wished that he could fight free of the chemise that seemed to split open at his back, but he didn’t do anything.

Charles’s eyes widened, his mouth opening slightly in shock, then his whole demeanour changed. A smile played on his lips. Erik felt a slight shiver race up his spine, but couldn’t decide if it was in anticipation or revulsion.

Charles must have picked up the surface ripple of Erik’s confusion. His face gentled instantly as he misinterpreted the feeling. _I know, Erik, I know. I’ll be gentle_ , he whispered in Erik’s mind. Erik’s jaw tightened at that, and he tried with all his might to push images of roughly grabbed limbs, pulled hair, Charles’s widely spread legs and raised arse, of eagerness and force into Charles’s mind, and hoped he would listen.

A flicker of something uncomfortable passed over Charles’s face, but was gone as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the same old self-satisfied and comfortable Charles in its wake.

Charles got up from his bed, taking two steps towards Erik and then sinking to the floor in front of him. Charles buried his face in Erik’s stomach, rubbing his nose against the cool fabric and moaning quietly against Erik’s satin-covered skin. He must have felt Erik’s cock against his throat; Erik definitely felt the caress of skin against it, but Charles seemed to ignore it with expert casualness.

Erik looked down, along his own body in the dress that was so wrong on him, at Charles kneeling at his feet. Did he kneel in surrender, or did he touch Erik’s stomach so intimately, because he thought he deserved to touch where he pleased and where Erik felt vulnerable? 

Regardless, Charles looked utterly beautiful to Erik kneeling there, so desperate and so frantic in his desire.

_Wollust._

_Lüsternheit, Schamlosigkeit, Unsittlichkeit, Unzucht._

_Sinneslust, Genussfreude, Begierde, Verlangen, Unruhe, Lust, Gier, Trieb, Übertreibung, Üppigkeit, Reiz, Verführung, Kitzel, Rausch, Sinnlichkeit._

_Leidenschaft._

Maybe Charles was willing to compromise as well. Erik hoped he had listened.

He stroked a hand through Charles’s soft curls, clenching his hand into a fist at the last moment and pulling Charles away. Erik felt Charles’s head jerk as surprise made him attempt to look up, but he couldn’t with his head immobilised by Erik’s grip. Erik clenched his fist tighter, feeling single hairs cut into the palm of his hand before some of them snapped. He heard Charles hiss through his teeth and mutter his name. Erik jerked his hand sharply, and Charles fell instantly silent. His hand, now hanging uselessly down his crouched body, twitched restlessly. Erik could feel, like a rash on his skin, Charles’s desire to raise his hand to his temple and make everything go away.

“Don’t,” Erik murmured calmly. He was a little astonished how caring his voice sounded to his own ears.

“I’m not your boy.” Charles whispered. It sounded just shy of desperate.

“I don’t want a boy,” Erik growled, just before a tendril of iron, thin as a thread, slung around Charles’s throat. He let go of Charles entirely. The black metal pulled at Charles, growing thicker and thicker the closer he staggered to the bed frame from which it came. Erik only released the pull when Charles had crawled onto the bed, crouching there on all fours. His frame was shaking, his arms worst of all.

“Don’t worry, Charles,” Erik sneered with sadistic glee, “I’ll be _gentle_.” He snorted in derision. “Since we both know what a gentle person I am.”

Charles didn’t answer, but his breath quickened just a little.

Erik pulled at Charles’s clothes, and when Charles made no attempt to help, he just pulled harder, pulling and shoving at legs and arms until Charles was naked. He had already left scratches and pink welts on Charles’s skin, and felt oddly pleased by it. The arousal Erik felt was a more than welcome addition to the vengeful feeling. Erik grabbed Charles around the middle, shoving him onto his back roughly.

Charles lay there, naked and visibly aroused, and he didn’t seem to know where to look. His eyes skittered around the room, avoiding Erik.

Erik stepped back, taking in the image of Charles nervously fidgeting on the bed. _Armes, kleines Reh,_ Erik thought. He turned his back to Charles and instantly heard the hitch of breath from him as Charles laid his eyes on Erik’s back and the open vee in the dress down to his arse. Of course he would need to look as soon as he thought Erik wouldn’t know that he was looking. _Cute_ , Erik thought mockingly, and heard a quiet, cut off moan in answer. Good, so Charles was in his head.

Standing next to the bed Erik twisted and wriggled his body out of the red lingerie, pulling it over his head, revealing all of his body for Charles to see, then he turned around and just about saw Charles snap his eyes away and blush furiously.

“Look at me,” Erik said calmly, but with as much authority as he could push into his voice. Charles refused, lowering his head, sweat from his forehead rolling down into his brows.

“Look at me!” Erik roared. The black iron around Charles’s throat snapped up into his chin, pushing his head up, his teeth clicked audibly. Charles panted, but he looked, his eyes finally roaming over Erick’s body. He flushed even more.

“Look at this,” Erik said almost conversationally, rubbing his hand over his chin, scratching over the evening’s stubble. “And this,” he continued, his hand brushing down over his Adam’s apple, lower to his chest, carding his fingers through coarse hair. Charles’s breath came raggedly now, and he never took his eyes from Erik. Somehow, Erik doubted he could.

His one hand still on his chest, Erik lifted his other, the chemise still bunched in his fist, and stroked it up his thigh through the hair on his leg that thickened and darkened at the apex, along his balls and up his cock. Erik was still very hard and the fabric felt surprisingly nice. If he weren’t wearing it, he might come to like this, Erik decided.

Charles groaned roughly, his gaze rolling upwards, his eyes finally closing. He took a few ragged breaths and opened them again, staring at Erik with a mix of equal parts fear and adoration.

“I’m not a clean, hairless, effeminate little boy.” Erik looked Charles in the eyes for a long moment. “And neither are you,” he said pointedly, letting his eyes roam over Charles’s body before his gaze stopped at Charles’s cock, jutting up from its nest of dark curls.

Slowly, the chemise still pressed against his groin, Erik stepped closer. He was aware of how predatory he must look, how dangerous, and he _felt_ dangerous and feral.

Charles whimpered between panting breaths when Erik finally let his weight dip the mattress down on one side. Charles held his hands at either side of his head. He was not bound except for the coil of metal around his neck, but he looked like he was, and he willingly kept his hands in that position. Erik shuddered violently at the thought.

“You could stop me at any time.” Erik phrased it in a particular way so it was neither a threat, nor quite a statement, nor really a question. When Charles didn’t answer, Erik let the thin metal around Charles’s throat contract in a pulsing wave like the beat of a living heart. “Couldn’t you, Charles?” he asked in a more menacing tone.

Charles squeezed his eyes shut, blushing hotly in embarrassment, and nodded.

“But you’re not going to, are you?”

Charles shook his head, whimpering softly as the metal undulated against this throat and Erik let the rough stitching of the black bobbin lace brush against Charles’s naked chest. He carefully untangled the garment and laid it over Charles’s torso in such a way that it looked almost like Charles was wearing it. He took great care to smooth the wrinkles out, rubbing the cool fabric into Charles’s sweating skin.

“Because you like it,” Erik whispered into his ear, “Because you want this.” He didn’t really need an answer; the sight of Charles’s erection twitching under the satin was enough.

Charles whimpered, eyes squeezed tightly shut, blushing hard. He had started to sweat profusely, the fine fabric soaking up the drops of perspiration, darkening it.

“Say it!” Erik hissed, grabbing Charles’s chin and turning his head to look at Erik’s face. “Say it, and look at me when you say it!”

Charles just mewled a strangled moan, clamping his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw working furiously. Erik let his head droop slowly over Charles’s shoulder the fine, satiny chemise brushing his cheek. The cool fabric was like a soft splash of water against his skin, and it must feel the same to Charles as he moaned helplessly.

Charles turned his head away, drawing his legs up to his belly, pushing Erik away, and he curled up into a sideways foetal position, his legs angled up and to the side as best as he could manage with his neck shackled. He shook slightly, the chemise crumpled between his legs. His eyes were screwed shut and his breath flowed in irregular sobs from between his lips.

Way too late, Erik realised that Charles was crying without ever shedding a tear, bemoaning what he deeply craved and needed, but thought he should never want. Erik felt betrayed and angry for being cheated out of what he knew was right for them, but also at a complete helpless loss as to what to do about it. In the end, he stroked Charles’s shoulder in what he hoped was a calming gesture, but he felt uneasy and awkward. After a while, he felt the uneasiness built up, until he eventually had the overwhelming urge to leave, so he did.

Only when he stood alone in his room again did he realise that this urge had not been born out of his own impulse, but Charles’s shame. Erik thought he should feel angry about that, but he just felt tired. He wasn’t even sure Charles had really done it on purpose. Either way, he felt so hollow, and so tired of the whole thing that he just dropped onto the mattress naked, and slung the down duvet around him.

Before uneasy sleep overwhelmed him, Erik wished that tomorrow would bring the death of Shaw and also another chance to make it right between him and Charles.

xXx

**Author's Note:**

> Furius's full prompt:  
>  _In which Charles has *definite* ideas about what is homosexual what is not. He's had schoolboy fumblings (all boy school), he's had the intense friendships (all men colleges), he's even gone for sodomy (purely intellectual exploration, you understand), but he would never play the "boy". After all, he does enjoy women. Then comes Erik, who's known nothing but pain and revenge for most of his life. He passed his adolescence under Shaw. He knows he's powerful. He can speak many languages and knows how to kill a man a thousand ways, but his fantasies have always been of violence. He's a virgin with severe intimacy issues. After all, the people who like to touch him all-over were the scientists, only most of them clinical._  
>  _He's in love with Charles. He would do anything. And Charles- Well, Erik is nothing like he expected._  
>  _But what Charles wants, he gets. Still, it is so much easier to convince himself if Erik could dress up as a woman..wear a dress. It is unexpectedly hot anyways._  
>  _(Prompted because Charles' imagination of Erik as a woman is too accurate and his comment of "beautiful" and "darling" too reassuredly taken..)._


End file.
